LEARNING

How to make others feel safe and motivated to learn?

Can learning be part of the growth of your employees? Does learning makes them safe and keeps them coming back for more? Do you really care about your employee’s learning?

1. Let learning be cooperation, not competition.

Learning should not be a shared petition. Yes, you can make good-natured learning competitions that are fun but do not allow the learning process to divide people and set them against each other in unhealthy ways. If learning becomes a win / lose for your team if people experience it that way, highly competitive people can hardly wait to play, but those who do not will give up. This can have a devastating effect on your team’s overall ability to perform. Help your team understand that learning is both an individual process and a collaborative process. Make them expect to have a responsibility to help their colleagues learn. An easy way to nurture these norms in your team is to invite members of your team to intentionally help one person every day. You can increase this expectation every time you have a team meeting. When you gain momentum and experience, ask your team members to share examples of how they have been helped or helped in the learning process. Remember, make learning a collaboration, not a competition.

2. Adopt a mindset for learning.

The concept of a student means that we learn and never get to the place where we learned everything. This is a way of thinking that we want to adopt so that we do not become arrogant or complacent in learning. The way of thinking implies a certain humility in our attitude towards learning. When you adopt this way of thinking, even though you may be an expert in your field, you are eager to learn from others. Some people have the opposite view. They develop a complex of superiority and real arrogance because they are good at what they do. Isn’t that irritating? Who wants to work with an expert whose main impulse is to tell the world how smart he is? These are people you don’t want on your team. They want merit and they want time to speak. It’s exhausting! Help your team members understand that although they can become experts and develop expertise in their areas of responsibility, we are always learning and we will never reach a place of permanent competence. Ask yourself questions:

Do you accept a modest way of learning? Do you show the ability to learn from anyone, regardless of rank or influence? Do you model this enthusiasm for learning to your team?

3. Assess each person’s learning style and mood.

Each member of your team has a different learning style and mood. Some are visual learners. Some like to learn on their own. Some like to learn aloud. Some are self-centered. Some hate classrooms, but love to learn at work. Your task is to understand the learning patterns of each individual in your team. You can do this by observing them, and also interviewing them, and asking them about their learning preferences. Remember, part of your role as a leader is to encourage and enable the learning of each member of your team. You can’t do that efficiently with a single factory approach. People have extremely different learning styles and dispositions. To help each member of your team accelerate their learning, you need to know how they learn best. Sometimes they don’t even know, so you’ll be on a journey of discovery with them. Once you learn how your team members learn best, help by setting some learning and development goals and personalizing your learning as much as possible. For example, I had a member of my team who couldn’t focus long enough to go through some of the books I recommended he read. Ten minutes was about as long as he could read. But I also found out that he loved the video. He could really focus as he learned from the videos. When I learned this, we sat down and identified some learning objectives in several areas, and then I made him develop his own video-based curriculum. He created a magnificent curriculum of carefully selected short videos. Well, do you think he was motivated to learn at the time? Here’s a call to action: Assess the learning style and mood of each member of your team. Then have them personalize their own learning path.

4. Encourage your private and public students.

Your job is to reduce the inhibition and anxiety that are so often associated with learning. Your team probably consists of both private and public students. You may notice that some team members are reluctant to learn in a group environment. We call them private students. If you feel reluctant, try to help the team member learn by working with them one-on-one in their space or in a neutral space to make them comfortable. And of course, they like to work independently. Private students prefer quiet, focused, isolated places. Thus they enter their mood or what we call the state of flow. You will also have some members of your team learning primarily through social interaction. It is a source of fuel for them in the learning process, and when you take them away from the environment of the learning society, they get bored and cannot concentrate. Think about your team members and ask yourself this question: Do you know who I am?

Who are the students on your team? Do you do everything to find out who the private students on your team are? Most of us have a tendency to be more than each other. The obvious challenge is that private learning does not allow for real-time collaboration. Your team needs that. When you learn together, you can often learn faster because your team has a great brain. You can discuss ideas and provide feedback to each other. Here’s what you can do: First, identify your private students. Second, invite them to give more to public learning even though they may not prefer it. Third, protect their airspace from aggressive public students on your team who may be tempted to talk more than they listen.

5. Share what you learn.

One of the most powerful ways to encourage others to learn is to share what you learn. Share topics, insights and most importantly the joy and satisfaction you gain in the learning process. Your optimism and enthusiasm for learning are contagious. Ask yourself this question: “What have I learned lately and why am I excited?” It may have been something you learned while reading a book, watching a video, or listening to a podcast. That may have been something you learned in a short lunch conversation or during your morning team meeting. It may have been something you learned by questioning or experimenting with something. There are so many ways to learn. Now think about this: Learning is a source of happiness. When we learn something new, we must now keep that new skill or fact or insight or knowledge. Every time you learn something new, it changes you as a person. You are just a little more enlightened, a little wiser, a little more capable, and a little more confident. Do you remember when you learned to ride a bike? You probably fell and rubbed your knees a few times. But then came that magical moment when the person helping you let go and suddenly you were balancing the bike yourself. Chances are you screamed with joy. Learning brings joy because people have an innate desire to learn and become better. What is the call to action? Share what you have learned. Let others feel the enthusiasm for your discovery. Then encourage your team members to do the same.

6. Help your team members achieve small victories.

Some members of your team will be aggressive in their learning habits and confident in their overall ability to learn and solve problems. Others will not. They will be provisional and will feel that they need to ask permission to get involved in the learning process, although that sounds a bit silly. But that’s how they really feel. Sometimes a person only needs an invitation to be a part of the learning process. Remember what I said in the book: The true definition of destruction is – that no one cares when you fail. Chances are you’ll have some team members go through that. They felt defeated. Your job is to take deep care of their learning and set them up for success. How do you do that? Identify questions, problems, or challenges that you can give to your other team members as learning tasks. Don’t give them learning tasks that are too big and discourage them further. Make them manageable and meaningful. Helping your team members achieve small victories.

7. Invite others to think beyond their roles.

People are proud of what they do, it is almost always true that they like to talk about their individual roles. Here’s what you can do: Invite your team members to explain their roles or share something that has recently been done in their role and how it affects other team members. You could do this as part of a weekly meeting. You can set “Share Your Role” as your moment under the spotlight. This can encourage all team members to appreciate each other, as well as learn something new about each role. In the 21st century, it is necessary for every employee to learn how to think beyond their role. But it’s not easy, because most of the roles are narrow, so we develop thinking tactics and demonstrate covert thinking. We know our job and not many others because that is what the organization asked of us. That is changing. In our 20s, we need a team member who can get up in his balloons and see the big picture. Why? How do you improve and innovate if you only see your role? You need to be able to see the processes, systems, and cause-and-effect relationships. Let’s say you’re a purchasing officer and in charge of buying several different types of things, that’s nice, but what if you can understand our higher-level purchasing strategy and suggest improvements that go beyond the narrow confines of your role? Wow. That is precious. Now go do it. Invite others to think beyond their roles.

8. Share past mistakes.

It’s hard to learn from mistakes if a team has a culture that hides them. If you pay attention carefully, you will notice that each team has its own attitude towards mistakes. That attitude comes from the influence of the leader more than any other factor. With the risk of oversimplification, there are two basic types of teams when it comes to mistakes. Teams that associate mistakes and failure with fear and those that make mistakes and they see failure as learning and opportunities that lead us forward. Your job as a team leader is to generate norms in the team that separate mistakes and failure from fear. Except in cases where a team member makes mistakes out of recklessness, irresponsibility, or gross negligence, do not punish mistakes. Celebrate them. How does it work? How do you get your team to have the courage and confidence to share and learn from mistakes and failures? Simply. Take the opportunity to mention some of your mistakes, some of your failures. Laugh at them and share what you have learned from them. This will encourage others to be more comfortable sharing their mistakes and failures and trying to learn from them. Talking about mistakes and showing vulnerability is crucial for encouraging others to learn.

9. Seek help from people of lower status.

Find ways to seek help from those lower than you in the hierarchy. This is how you can shape humility in learning. You also give the other person the opportunity to teach and be helpful, which leads to increased self-confidence and engagement. Step back and think about this: What does status have to do with learning? Answer: No!. Does higher status make you smarter? Does a higher status make you correct? Of course not. That’s funny. But that’s how so many people behave. We do not deal with learning and solving problems together with full confidence. Why? Because the status difference becomes an obstacle, and in reality, it is nothing but an artificial restriction. The universal way in which those with lower status deviate from those with higher status is a pattern that intersects every society and culture. And that is not surprising, because when you are lower on the ladder, you are more vulnerable and more exposed to personal risk. As a leader, you know that this pattern already exists. It existed before you were born. What can you do? Be realistic. Find real questions or problems that you need help with and ask them to those who may know, but may have a lower status than you. This will greatly remove the disastrous problem of status differences that often gets in our way. Now it’s your turn.

10. Frame problems before solving them.

Teach your team to frame or frame problems before solving them. We often hear a person present a problem and the need to solve it, and then what do we do? We are immersed in trying to solve it. Isn’t that a good thing? The intention is good, but the approach is wrong. Think about what we do if we just go straight to solving the problem. We assume that the problem is set correctly. That is a big assumption, and if we go forward, we will eventually solve the wrong problem. It is fantastic to have a team of aggressive and capable problem solvers, but the best teams spend a lot more time on the front side analyzing a problem before they ever think about potential solutions. Find the problem and say: “I would like you to help me” frame “this problem, not solve it. I want to make sure I define the problem correctly before I try to solve it. ”Here’s an easy way to determine your team’s pattern. Have a habit of asking your team these questions: “What are we deciding on?” and “What’s the job to do?” When you ask this question, you encourage your team to think about the nature and scope of the question, to frame it properly, before trying to solve it. To summarize. Frame the problems before you solve them using two powerful questions: what do we solve? Or, what work needs to be done?

11. Share your personal learning goals.

Set an example by setting and sharing your own learning goals with your team. Think about technical and non-technical learning goals. Your example will often motivate other team members to set and pursue their own learning goals. We are not usually open to sharing personal goals. In fact, if you ask most people what their learning goals are, they would give you a weird look. “Learning Objectives? What Are They?” This is because most people do not have the habit of having learning goals. And that’s the problem. In 2022, you need learning goals. You need to regularly make a personal list of your skills and based on that identify the shortcomings or opportunities in your skills and set goals to eliminate them and take advantage of those opportunities. And what I suggest is that you share your personal learning goals openly with your team. You and your team members need to stay relevant and competitive. Model a deliberate approach by knowing where you want to go in your learning goals. Your influence will encourage your team members to follow the same pattern. Share your personal learning goals.

12. Help team members set specific, time-limited learning goals.

We just talked about the importance of setting an example by sharing your personal learning goals. Some members of your team may set their own learning goals, but you will realize that many will not. And your example will not be enough. It is true that your team members will learn more efficiently and consistently when they set clear goals about what they want to learn. But that is often not enough to encourage them. They will need more practical help. When you ask them to set personal learning goals, many team members eventually have general aspirations for improvement. For example, a team member might say, “My goal is to be better at making presentations.” Or, “My goal is to become a better listener.” These statements are commendable, but they are not statements that contain specific and time-limited learning goals. Here are two things you can do to help your team members in this process. First, help them think about what learning goals might be appropriate for their roles and responsibilities. Second, help them set specific, measurable goals with deadlines. For example, “My goal is to give presentations without reading scripts, fluently speaking from notes, and asking questions with ease and confidence. I want to practice presentations twice a week and finally show my new skill level in the quarter when I report on our team’s sales. “Do you see the difference? Now go and do it. Help your team members set specific, time-bound goals that specifically address their roles and responsibilities.

13. Encourage the emotional side of learning to build self-confidence.

Let’s go back to the premise of learning. Learning is a basic human need. If you get rid of the fear, inhibition, and anxiety that we all bring to some level in the learning process if you eliminate all that, you will find out that human beings are worried and eager to learn. Another thing we know about learning is that the process is both intellectual and emotional. It’s a combination of head and heart and you can’t separate the two. Nor should you want it. What does this mean? This means that a person’s emotional state affects his desire and ability to learn. The student leaves high school every 26 seconds in America. They don’t give up because they’re not smart enough. They give up because they do not have the necessary support and self-confidence. They don’t feel that someone really cares or cheers for them. Don’t let that happen to your team members. Is there an aspect of cheering on this? Absolutely. You are partly there to cheer up the members of your team in the learning journey, to encourage them, and to build their self-confidence. Your team members will act on the expectations they have of you. And most of the time, they will try to meet those expectations. Invest a little in your expectations. Don’t make them too high, but high enough that they need to be stretched. The potential of your team to learn is unknown and unknowable. Consistently remind your team members that earning a living means learning about their lives. Remember, learning is a beautiful game of head and heart. Encourage both.

14. Formulate a set of questions.

We often think that asking the right questions is somehow easy or natural and that you can do it without preparation. It doesn’t work that way. Asking thoughtful questions requires a lot of thinking and preparation. In fact, it is part of the learning process. The next time you solve a problem with your team, ask them to take 10 minutes to formulate a set of questions to ask about the problem before you start discussing the problem you are solving. This will speed up the learning process for everyone. For example, let’s say your customer has a negative experience and gives you honest feedback. First of all, it’s all wonderful. Without feedback, you wouldn’t even know you had a problem. Did you take note of that and jump in to tackle the problem? No, step back with your team and create the questions you need to ask. What happened? Why did this happen? At what point in the process did the customer encounter a process breakdown? What caused what? What is so much friction in this part of the customer experience? Is there any other data or feedback that suggests that this is a recurring pattern? Do we have standard performance for this or do we think it is normal? Do we dismiss a customer complaint because we think it is unreasonable? Are we arrogant or humble in our response? Is responding to his feedback a priority given the other customer feedback we have? Does anyone feel a personal responsibility for what happened? How would we design a customer experience if we could start from scratch? And so on and so forth … The point is that these questions are not made alone. They don’t jump on the agenda when we get together and talk about what happened. Remember, questions activate the learning process, so invest in advance in that process of formulating some thoughtful and challenging questions.

15. Ask questions to activate learning.

Asking questions is the activator that starts the learning process. When we ask a question, we catalyze the learning process ourselves and those we ask. Encouraging team members to ask important questions pushes our thinking, skills, and experience. So how do we apply this principle in a practical way? Here’s a tip: The next time you have a team meeting and if you have a question to discuss, let your team know that you want each team member to ask a substantive question about the issue before commenting, noticing, or sharing an opinion. Freezing point. This simple request will change the dynamics of the group process. This could slow down the discussion a bit, but it will add depth and quality to the discussion that you would not normally get because the questions encourage critical thinking and thinking on a new level. If you ask a question you would not normally ask, that question will trigger new learning – learning that simply would not have happened. Each new question opens a new investigative door. If you don’t ask a question, you don’t open the door. Just pass. Isn’t that an amazing thought? It makes you a little nervous about the questions that should have been asked in the past, but no one has asked them. Now the last part: if you are the team leader, you should be the main questioner. You should be the best and most skilled questioner. In fact, over time, you will realize that you are managing questions more efficiently than answering questions.

16. Implement rotating mentoring.

Rotating mentoring is a system in which team members have a monthly mentoring session of 45 minutes with other people outside the team. This provides a concentrated learning opportunity for an individual to learn from someone with a different perspective, skills, and experience. If there is an opportunity to implement a rotating mentoring system, do so. The benefits are amazing. Think about it. Each member of your team can sit down with someone with a wealth of knowledge and experience from another part of the organization. If you’re not physically collocated, if you have a distributed workforce, that’s not a problem. Use video conferencing. But don’t go cold and unprepared. Instruct your team members to create a series of questions to ask before each mentoring session. How much? Good question. I saw team members preparing 10 to 20 questions. That’s too much. Five to seven questions are enough. In fact, many may not be able to do it. You will often find that the dialogue is so rich and rewarding that you can discuss one issue for a long time. And don’t worry about going through all the questions. Don’t let your questions dictate the agenda. If you start talking about your first question and find that your conversation is going the other way, let it go. Sometimes a free debate that takes its course is most valuable. And by the way, when you ask other experienced employees to participate in a rotating mentoring program, most of them are more than willing to give you 45 minutes a month. It confirms them personally and allows them to share their hard-earned wisdom. Mentoring another person is mostly a deeply fulfilling experience. Are you ready for that? Do it once as a rehearsal and I think you will be shocked by the effect?

17. Assign learning projects for action.

Assign a small group or sub-team a real and significant problem to solve. Provide clear goals, time frame, resources, and basic rules for solving the problem. Have the team present their recommendations in a formal setting. Adopt suggestions if it makes sense. Identify those involved in the process. In short, this is how learning from action works. Now, action learning is not a new concept. We continue to do that because it works. When I say it succeeds, it does several things: It creates shared learning because you work as a team on a project. There really is no better way to develop team problem-solving skills. I will give a little more details on how to set up an action learning project. Assign the right problem first. It has to be important, timely, challenging, and a bit complex. It can’t be something you can come up with and solve on your own. And second, put together a diverse team, and when I say diverse, the most important dimension of diversity is cognitive diversity. Find people who think differently. Third, ask the team for a practical solution to the problem by a certain deadline. Fourth, if at all possible, allow the team to test their proposed solutions and learn from the results. Fifth, repeat. This is how learning from action works. Okay, go and find an action learning project and gather a team to solve it.

18. Destigmatize failure by celebrating failure.

Remember when you were little and when you first put together a puzzle or a lego, so you didn’t succeed. Did your parents laugh at you or with you? Have they conveyed an important element of the irrelevance of current failure and the importance of learning from failure? Sounds complicated when we are small… When you fail, there is at least one thing we know for sure. What is that? When you fail, we know with absolute certainty that you have tried! You did something. You put yourself there, you took risks and you were exposed to potential loss. We know that you have tried, and the attempt itself is worth celebrating because it is the path to progress and self-confidence. Failure is proof that an individual learns through trial and effort. As long as team members fail within defined limits, you should encourage this behavior. In fact, failure is no exception; it is the way forward. We often learn more from failure than from success. When a team member fails and learns from it, celebrate. Inform the whole team about the achievement. Think about what this does.

When you celebrate failure, you focus on effort, not outcome. That is exactly what the elite. If you step up your efforts, of course, there will be failures. We expect failures. We want failures. More importantly, we want our people to keep trying, make further efforts, and keep experimenting. That is the behavior we want to strengthen. Destigmatize failure by celebrating failure.

19. Dedicate time to learning without a budget.

If you ask most leaders in organizations if they value learning, each hand will go up. Everyone is for it. But if you ask most leaders if they are consistent in devoting time and resources to learning in their organizations, far fewer hands will go up. If you talk about the importance of learning but do not devote time or resources to it, it really is not a priority. Now I realize that this is especially difficult in small organizations, so what I suggest is to dedicate time to learning without a budget. Zero-budget learning means that learning costs nothing. The miracle of the 2020s is that we have almost unlimited access to the world’s largest learning resources. And most of these resources are free. Choose an area of ​​skill, do a little research and get into it. Find videos, find podcasts, find articles, and find free online courses. At this point, you really can’t look me in the face and say, “Milos, we just don’t have any training budget. We want to be a learning organization, but we don’t have enough resources. “You just can’t say it anymore. Those days are gone. How to do it? There’s no perfect approach. Just identify some learning goals and get going. Just make sure you do it consistently.”

20. Admit your ignorance and say “I don’t know”.

I once worked with a leader who would not only say, “I don’t know,” but he would say it with confidence, enthusiasm, and anticipation. Why would he do that? He did so because he was worried about the discovery process he knew would follow. He was excited to hire his team to solve a new question or problem he didn’t know the answer to. And the fact that he didn’t know the answer didn’t stop him in the least. Fortunately, his self-confidence and sense of identity as a leader was not based on being an expert and having all the answers. His self-confidence stems from the knowledge that he can hire his team and enroll them in a common learning process. A leader feels so self-conscious and insecure if he does not know how to answer a question. Where did that mentality come from? Well, it’s an old paradigm rooted in the industrial age. Today, that paradigm is obsolete. Get rid of her. We all have areas of skills and knowledge where we feel comfortable and confident. When we step out of our areas of competence, it is natural to feel a little insecure. Can I give you some advice? Embrace insecurity. Let everyone know that you are human. All you do is acknowledge what everyone already knows. Therefore, it is refreshing for your team if you can recognize with certainty the ignorance in the areas that go beyond your cruiser. If you gracefully acknowledge your limitations, it will encourage others to learn without fear. Admit your ignorance and confidently say, “I don’t know.”

21. Show empathy in learning.

We mentioned that learning is an intellectual and emotional process. It is a combination of head and heart. You cannot separate the two, so if a student feels emotionally hurt, that student is not able to learn effectively. The way we communicate with people as they learn has a profound effect on their motivation and ability to learn. People often stop learning when they encounter harsh, critical, indifferent, or sarcastic responses in the learning process. Have you ever asked a question at school or at work and the teacher or boss gave you a sarcastic, impatient, or rude look, as if to say, “What a stupid question?” Even if they never said those words, if it was just their body language, how did you feel? In many ways, our hearts involve our brains. Here’s what you can do: Avoid any belittling or disrespecting the learning process, even if the other person doesn’t recognize a fact, concept, or skill that is simple or obvious to you. These patterns of response increase personal vulnerability and exclude motivation to learn. Show empathy in learning. Recognize that people will never learn under your conditions. They will learn only under their own conditions.

22. Align the problem with the person.

It is necessary to personalize the learning process based on the needs of each individual. For team members who are confident, capable, and aggressive students, challenge them with difficult problems — problems they may have no idea how to solve. Find difficult, thorny problems that you have not yet managed to solve and let them try their hand at solving them. Remind yourself that you’re most talented and capable people have a huge appetite for learning and solving challenging problems. If you don’t give them a meal that matches their appetites, what will happen? Remember when you were in school. When learning does not stimulate the student, what happens? The student leaves. The student stays and is bored. The student stayed he is bored and had problems. On the other hand, what happens if you give people too many problems to solve? Problems prevail, they lose self-confidence, they are ashamed, and they become frustrated. I could continue because there are a number of unforeseen consequences. Your job is to know the motivation and capacity of each of your people, and then align them with the real problems. You don’t want it to be boring. Nor do they want to burn. Never make too strong and too weak challenges. This is easy to say, and yet I realize that it is not easy to do, so after you report the problem, apply regularly to provide appropriate training and guidance. Then make the adjustments on the go. Remember, tailor the problem to the person.

23. Make a learning club.

We used to have reading clubs. Well, some people still have, but you can go beyond creating a learning club that includes not only books but also videos and podcasts. You don’t need a monetary incentive. Learning is an incentive. Personal development is an incentive. In the learning club, you not only read but also watch and listen. You read books or articles, watch videos and listen to podcasts on topics relevant to the team’s work. Then you have team members sharing their insights and lessons with the rest of the team. The learning tools now available to us are almost out of the question, and yet most people have not yet become aggressive, self-directed learners. They are still too passive. The good news is that many people simply need a little energy, support, and some cooperation. They are ready to get involved in the learning process, but they do not want to do it alone. It’s not that much fun, nor is it so rewarding. And for those of you who lead remote teams, there is no barrier to doing so. You don’t have to be face to face. Just jump to your favorite video conferencing platform and you’re ready to go. Agree on a regular meeting time and rotate responsibility for choosing the learning resources you will watch or listen to, and then talk to your team. There has never been a better time to create a learning club.

24. Conduct daily burst learning.

Learning does not have to take long. In fact, micro-learning segments can only take five minutes. Make it a habit to do short segments of learning in regular meetings. Rotate tasks among all team members. Some bursts of learning include a lesson at one point on a particular topic. Maybe an interpersonal topic is like listening. Maybe it’s a leadership skill like holding people accountable. Maybe it’s a more specialized skill such as reading the income statement. It’s amazing what you can achieve in 5-10 minutes. Now that I say I do it every day, it may seem overwhelming at first. But keep in mind that we are only talking about 5-10 minutes. Can you take 5-10 minutes? If you can, this behavior will create energy and “momentum” for learning. It will be new to people in the beginning, but I can promise you that your team members will master it very quickly. They will look forward to it and it will become a new pattern and expectation. You create a rhythm for continuous learning.

25. Communicate a vision of potential.

People often can’t see their potential when they can. Help them see what they can become if they maintain continuous learning. If they continue to learn, their vision of themselves will catch up with yours. He’ll see what you see now. So what is the specific behavior I am advocating here? Here’s an example of what this might look like. It comes down to short points of affirmation. But they must be concrete. For example, I could say. “Marko, I am impressed with the way you are managing this project. You are on the schedule and on a budget. What have you learned about your potential as well as this project? “You listen to Mark’s answer. And then you add your perspective.” I think you can move on to the next level. I think you can handle a larger project. Finally, you might be able to manage It takes work to get to that level of skill, but I think you have that potential. “Do you see what I’m saying? Help the individual see into the foggy future. What could they achieve? Sometimes your vision of what they can do will surpass their vision of what they can. It encourages motivation to learn. Let me say again: communicate a vision of potential.

26. Explain formal and non-formal learning.

Most of the teachings we do in life are informal. Once we leave school, we spend very little time in structured learning environments. Help your team members understand that in the long run, their personal informal learning habits will make all the difference. When I was studying at Oxford University, I had a world-famous professor who made a statement that I will never forget. He said, “The most important thing you can learn in school is how to learn when you leave school.”I haven’t left school for several years and I can tell you that he was right. He was one hundred percent right. Our long-term success is it is largely based on the motivation and skills we must learn when we leave the structure of the learning environment. So, what’s the behavior? Behavior is to constantly remind the team that most of the teachings that work are informal. At work, at home, while talking to colleagues and friends, while reading, watching, or listening to the content you choose… What is important to know the difference between formal and non-formal learning? It’s important because when it finally occurs to you that most of your learning is informal, you’ll start to be more careful about how you do it. You will become more active than passive in your efforts. It will change your paradigm and your life. What is the behavior? Explain formal versus non-formal learning.

27. Model an example of taking notes.

Taking notes is perhaps the most obvious outward sign that a person is actively learning. Whether it’s on paper or an electronic device, make notes. It captures facts, insights, and observations that you want to remember and think about later. This habit will influence others to do the same. However, do not go to extremes and do not overdo it. I’ve seen some people make copious notes at every meeting. That is excessive. What I want to say is that we need to capture the key facts, observations, opinions, and insights that we generate or others generate around us. When you write something down, you give yourself another deliberate exposure to that information. You process them systematically again. This helps you analyze more efficiently and remember if you need it later. Some people don’t need a lot of notes, so if you are one of those people, I suggest you at least write down the keywords that will start the topic, the concept, the relationship, and the path of thinking. I came out of one of our team’s meetings the other day with one word on my paper. I wrote down the word compromise. Such a simple word reminded me that I have to go back and review the goals and priorities of our company. I needed to figure out what else we could stop doing, so we would have an intense focus on doing just a few important things. Just writing down the words encouraged me to think and follow. What is the behavior? Model and example of taking notes.

28. Disengage learning in your team.

Analyze the learning environment and the situation of team members, both individually and collectively. Identify any potential obstacles they face in the learning process. Maybe the work environment is too noisy. Maybe the person didn’t work with real colleagues. Maybe a person needs better resources. They may not have clear learning and development priorities. Perhaps the dominant behavior of one person excludes everyone else. Try to figure out how to improve the learning environment for each person. Your job as a leader is to decapitate the learning process. Start by asking this question: “What is the biggest barrier to learning we have in our team? Answer that question. Then remove the obstacle. As soon as you remove the obstacle, you move the bottleneck to another place. And there is always another place. Now ask the same question again: “What is the biggest obstacle to learning now?” Do your analysis. Information. Put yourself to the points of view. Okay, now go remove the obstacles. You’ve probably already realized that this process never ends. It’s eternal as we like to say. There is no behavior that can help you think more systematically about your team’s learning than this. It’s your turn. Behead learning in your team.

29. Accept quality feedback no matter where it comes from.

Show your form by accepting quality feedback from any direction. When it comes to feedback, you need to be agnostic about the person’s title, position, or authority. Instead, you should take care of the essence of the feedback. If it is valuable, useful, or accurate, embrace it and let others see you do it. Of course, if the feedback is not helpful, you must be kind and grateful to the person who gave it. But you certainly don’t work on it. What you are trying to do is build a culture of the meritocracy of ideas, a place where the best idea wins no matter where the idea comes from. Nobody’s against it, are they? We are all for it. But why do so few leaders have healthy, operational meritocracy? What bothers you? May I give you a brief answer: It is ego and insecurity. Leaders retreat and hide behind titles, positions and authority instead of actually allowing people to discuss issues of their merit. Your job is to make your team culturally equal. Whenever you talk to a “lower” person, do everything you can to think of arguing with an equal. What is the behavior? Accept quality feedback.

30. Share what you decide.

In a dynamic environment, our knowledge, skills, and experience may become obsolete. See when this happens to you. He points this out to others. Acknowledge that you are in a cycle of not learning and re-learning. The reality is that it happens to all of us regularly, but we are aware that we admit it because somehow we think it goes without saying, that we are less competent and therefore less valuable. It is again a matter of uncertainty. Think about how you can empower your team members by acknowledging what you have decided. You destigmatize this process. Not only do you make all this safe, but you also create expectations. It is a culture that holds us back and does not allow people to openly admit that skills and knowledge are outdated and irrelevant. Control your ego, learn and share. I unlearned and then learned again. I’m glad I did. Share what you decide.

31. Ask for feedback when needed.

It is normal to face questions, problems, or challenges during the normal course of work. What are you doing? Many people do not want to ask for help, especially those who are experienced, able to work, and are already skilled in many ways. They have lost their childish attitude towards learning because they think they need to know the answers. This attitude is deadly in the decade 2021. This new decade will haunt those who do not learn, and even stubborn students who want to understand it completely on their own. The right answer is a shared approach in which we give and receive feedback. Behavior is such that you do not hesitate to seek help in times of need. It may scratch your ego a little, but we are moving towards a problem that needs to be solved. Here’s the behavior: Ask for feedback when needed. Don’t try to be a hero and solve it yourself.

32. Never standstill in learning.

In 1950, the inaugural season of Formula 1 car racing, the average stop for a tire change took about 60 seconds. Today this choreographic dance lasts less than three seconds. The question is not: Are you knowledgeable and skilled? The question is, will you stay knowledgeable and skilled as the ground moves under your feet? The ability to be valuable to an organization through agile learning becomes more important as the organization struggles with the competition. Let’s say your boss announces that your company is restructuring a department, picking up competitors, leaving functions to someone else, or entering a new market. What’s going through your head? I could lose my job, my salary, my influence, my expertise, my credibility, my experience, my office, my friends, my, my, my … That gripping fear is not irrational. Human beings are mostly smart risk managers who are confused and sharpened in the perspective of change. However, the natural instinct to leave can be dangerously wrong, especially when it comes to learning. You can’t escape that. Remember, learn about your life as well as how much you earn for a living. Be committed to learning something new every day. I know it sounds cliché, but it is a way of personal and professional life that we must have deeply rooted in us. My point is simple: if organizations have to move with great dexterity to maintain a competitive advantage, what does that mean for you? You have to move with the caravan or risk insignificance. Competitive advantage is not just an organizational concept; it is also individual.

33. Provide unwavering support through low points.

As your team members progress through learning cycles, they will often encounter discouragement and low self-esteem. Evaluate these points and provide additional support to maintain their morale and progress through the effort. Find evidence of progress, even very small milestones that you can point out to them, no matter how small. Here your training brings huge dividends. Take people aside and ask them a few simple questions: First, how’s it going? Don’t ask, “Is it going well?” It’s a useless yes / no question. They want to share their experiences, both intellectually and emotionally. Second, the question: What do you think should be done now? Again, let them talk. You listen. Third question: How can I help you? Listen up. Do not take the burden or responsibility off them, but offer support and encouragement. And there may be some critical instructions or corrections they need. Do not hesitate to give them. Finally, express confidence. It is quite normal to get a little discouraged and get a little burnt – from time to time. Help your people shake off after a fall. Help them find renewal on the journey. There will be low points. Anticipate them. Be ready to provide unwavering support.

34. Record your observations about learning.

As you lead your team, naturally observe their work patterns. Give yourself another filter to look at their learning models, both individually and as a team. Write down your observations. Your observations will serve as a reference point from which you can step forward to help them improve. If you keep this habit, you will do things intentionally and purposefully in your efforts to improve your team’s learning patterns. You will be amazed at how powerful this behavior is. Once you have observations about team members’ learning patterns, turn them into questions you can use in personal teaching. For example, I could ask: “Milena, I notice that you don’t talk much at our team meetings. Is it the result of your introverted personality or do you like to observe and process things first? “Or, “Janko, you once told me that you hate school and that you barely survived in the classroom. I see that you are very driven to work on real problems and you seem to hate learning anything that has no practical application. Would you mind if I gave you a few extra projects to work on? “Do you see the power here? Study your people’s learning patterns. Write down your observations. Finally, use these observations in coaching conversations to help your people accelerate.

35. Do not go to social education.

Some people stop learning when they leave school. The only way to start learning again is when the organization expects it and provides the structure, process, resources, and responsibility for learning. So, I have a personal question for you. Are you like that? Do you rely on the machinery of the institution that will carry you with you? Are you addicted? Are you on social education? I understand that this is not an all-or-nothing question, but think of it as a question of degree. Are you too addicted in some areas? Don’t you need to become more self-centered? Be honest in your self-assessment. Are you worried about having some skills gaps that you don’t take the initiative to close? Here’s the point: Never become completely dependent on an organization or other people to tell you what to learn, why, or how. Let me press this a little harder: Are you taking full ownership of your career development? Of course, your organization may have systems in place to help you. There may be training, coaching, action learning, and annual review. It is okay. Accept help. But it makes no sense to entrust the planning and destiny of your career to an organization whose wealth will be ridden on unstable waves of unpredictable markets.

36. Teach the concept of learning agility.

Learning dexterity is the ability to learn at or above the speed of change. Learning a skill is different from competence. Competence means you have the knowledge and skills you need to create value today. Learning skills, on the other hand, are the ability to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills during and before market changes. You may be highly competent, but competence today is not necessarily a good predictor of competence tomorrow. The skill of learning is. It provides the most well-known measure of future competitiveness. Some of the most competent leaders this week will stumble and fail next week precisely because they are not learning at a speed of change or greater. If you teach, emphasize, and model this concept, you gradually reduce the sense of risk for your team members to feel when they get involved in the learning process. Lastly, your team members need to be reassured that not accepting the risk of learning is actually a greater risk than taking it because resting is suicide in your career. Professional skills today are more like technology. They go through a similar life cycle of products of introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Do you have a way of thinking that you have to give up skills that become obsolete and qualify yourself as new? If organizations need to move with greater dexterity to maintain a competitive advantage, what does that mean for you? You have to move with the caravan or risk insignificance. Competitive advantage is not just an organizational concept; it is also individual. Teach the concept of learning agility.

37. Hang your learning star on the company.

I distinctly remember a conversation I once had with an employee. He said his father told him: “If you can continue in [XYZ Company], you are set for life.” He told his son to show his star to the company. That advice reminds me of the children’s book I read to my children, are you my mother? P. D. Eastman. It’s a cute story. The problem is that some people look at their employers this way. Many people still have a maternal paradigm. That’s terrible career advice. “If I could at least be in that Technology Company, I would be secured,” says this career management hypothesis. If you can still do that, it’s fantastic, but don’t mistakenly believe that the organization is your mother and the source of security for your business. Such a belief is dangerously wrong in the twenty-first century. Today, the world cannot adapt to that strategy. The instability of things makes it a test of reality. We may long for stability and something we can hold on to, but please stop using the concept of job security. Replace it with the concept of personal competitiveness. The source of your competitive advantage is you. Writer V. S. Naipaul, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, once reflected on his upbringing in Trinidad in the following words: “Small places with simple economies gave birth to small people with simple destinies.” And so it was. But can we choose to live that way? Is there really a choice to compete in a small, simple economy? Not. Here’s the key point: Attach your star to your personal learning and competitiveness, not the company. The future belongs to the students.

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